


Like Spectres

by Aza_Marael



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, PTSD, Ulrich has PTSD, and secret keeping, there's a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 09:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9174853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aza_Marael/pseuds/Aza_Marael
Summary: Ulrich thought it was finally over. He was in University, in a normal life, far away from Kadic and its memories. He thought his biggest problems were figuring out what he was going to do after he graduated.Waking up in a X.A.N.A.-free Kadic was not part of his plans.





	

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He didn’t know why he felt like he was in such a hurry, but something in his chest tugged him continuously forward. It felt like coming home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably shouldn't be doing this. Oh well.

Ulrich Stern often found himself waking up in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat with his heart pounding. He would look around wildly, chest heaving, waiting for something to jump out at him. He often couldn’t remember what his dreams were about, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Sometimes, on the rare occasions he came home, he’d wake up to his mother or father shaking him awake, trying to speak to him. The first time he’d given his mother a black eye, he stopped sleeping at home.

His parents used to ask him what had happened; they used to try to figure out what went wrong with their son. Therapists, psychiatrists, counselors… Ulrich drew the line once they attempted to take him to the psych ward. They don’t ask about it anymore, though if Ulrich were being honest, he didn’t think they really cared.

Eventually, Ulrich just stopped coming home.

Odd and Yumi and the others knew what it was like. They understood the terror and the secrets and the weight of the guilt. They knew how to handle it, how to help each other handle it. But things changed as they got older. They drifted apart.

Ulrich supposed it was natural; they were far too different, held together by the very thing that haunted their minds at every waking moment. The freedom and solidarity that had once come with the virtual world was now only overshadowed by terror.

Yumi and William graduated, both choosing to move as far away from Kadic and its memories as they could. When the rest of them graduated, Odd did the same. Aelita and Jeremie stayed. They were still trying to figure out what had truly happened, where everything began and possibly even where it would end. Ulrich tried to stay too. Despite everything, Kadic and the factory still held his happiest memories.

Eventually, though, he couldn’t take it anymore. He saw ghosts and illusions everywhere, and it was eating away at his sanity. So he, too, moved far away.

Entering University was another rollercoaster in and of itself. He had been expected to go, to make something of himself. But after two and a half years, he still had no idea what to do with his life. The only things he was good at were soccer and fighting X.A.N.A. He spent hours just trying to keep his grades up, yet during class he found himself staring longingly out the window, letting the warmth of the sunlight send him into a fitful sleep.

Ulrich left for the dorms as soon as his last class for the evening was finished, not bothering to stop for dinner. Girls always tried to talk to him, but none of them were Yumi or Aelita, or even Sissi. It just wasn’t the same.

He had the room to himself, despite the cost being so much higher. But he wouldn’t know what to do if his roommate asked about the nightmares and the exercising and the panic attacks.

His stomach growled as he flopped back onto his too-hard bed, but Ulrich didn’t feel much like eating. He rolled over onto his side, staring at the single picture sitting on the side table. Aelita, Jeremie, Odd, William, Yumi, and a younger version of him all grinned back at him, Odd’s fingers poked out over his head, and even after all these years Ulrich couldn’t help but smile a bit. They had taken that picture right before Yumi and William graduated.

It didn’t take long for Ulrich to drift off.

 

* * *

 

_The abandoned factory loomed before him, welcoming despite all evidence to the contrary. He stood on the bridge, the entrance wide and welcoming. He was alone; no Yumi or Odd or Jeremie there to accompany him. Ulrich wondered if they were waiting for him in the factory. Perhaps they were already on Lyoko._

_He couldn’t recall there being a recent Xana attack, but they had gone there many, many times just to hang out. At first it was mainly for Jeremie to work on the materialization program and a way for them to talk to Aelita without any unwelcome company. After a while, it just became a place of refuge, somewhere disconnected from the rest of the real world._

_Ulrich couldn’t quite remember what he was doing there, standing on the bridge. There didn’t seem to be anything dangerous; if there was, X.A.N.A. would have come after him by now. Perhaps Jeremie had another new program to test out. Perhaps Odd wanted to initiate another race. Whatever it was, Ulrich wanted to be there, with his friends._

_He took off running towards the factory, only hesitating for a moment as he came up to the ropes. He looked down, but for once the drop didn’t seem as threatening. Ulrich grinned as he leapt out, grabbing the closest rope and swinging as he slid down. He stuck the landing, not taking a moment as he raced for the elevator._

_He didn’t know why he felt like he was in such a hurry, but something in his chest tugged him continuously forward. It felt like coming home._

_Ulrich couldn’t wait for the elevator to get there, foot tapping impatiently against the rumbling floor. The doors creaked open to the Laboratory that housed the supercomputer. Ulrich grinned, only for his face to fall._

_Jeremie was not there. No one was there, and the supercomputer was cold and dark. It felt wrong, so wrong. The Holomap of Lyoko wasn’t there, the screens weren’t lit up with numbers and codes and things only understood by their resident Einsteins. Jeremie wasn’t sitting there, waiting to greet him, to tell him he was late._

_Ulrich frowned and took the elevator down another level. The scanner room was just as dark, if not darker. The scanners were cold and closed. Everything about it felt so_ wrong _._

_Ulrich took the elevator down again. The core of the supercomputer loomed before him. It drew him in, like a beating heart. But the beat was sluggish, like the machines hooked up to a comatose patient. Almost hypnotic, he stepped closer, and the lever popped out towards him. Inviting him. Ulrich pulled it._

_The entire room lit up with the light of the core, and it was almost as if life flooded through the factory with the reactivation of its heart. Almost as if he was in a hypnotic trance, Ulrich returned to the Lab. It looked better; the Holomap had appeared in its space in the middle of the room, and the computer was humming with life. All it was missing was its resident Einstein._

_Ulrich sat down in the chair. It felt foreign to him. He didn’t belong there. He typed slowly on the computer, only vaguely remembering what Jeremie had taught them. Other than Jeremie or Aelita, Yumi knew the most about using the supercomputer. Even compared to Odd, Ulrich wasn’t very good. But he knew enough._

_Instead of taking the elevator down, Ulrich opted for the ladder, climbing down with a practiced ease. He jumped off the last few rungs, climbing into the only open scanner. The doors closed behind him. There was a familiar rush of adrenaline, a lightheaded, breath-taking feeling that he would always associate with the scanners._

_Light flooded the cabin, and Ulrich closed his eyes, and smiled._

 

* * *

Ulrich blinked repeatedly as he woke up to the sunlight streaming through the blinds and onto his face. It had been a long time since he had slept peacefully like that. Ulrich sat up with a groan; it had been an even longer time since he had actually remembered what he’d dreamt.

He yawned, rubbing the last traces of sleep from his eyes. He didn’t have any morning classes—when he entered University he made the smart decision to take later classes so he could sleep—and he was off from work until tomorrow so he could take it easy for a little while.

Ulrich groggily pulled himself over to the side of his bed, blinking to adjust his eyes to the light as he looked around his room. His bed stared back at him from across the room. Ulrich blinked, then blinked again just to make sure. He looked down. He was sitting on his bed, so how…?

Adrenaline flooded his veins as Ulrich jumped to his feet, bolting out the door and straight to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The bathroom was empty—it was likely too early or too late for anyone to still be there—and he made a beeline for the mirrors.

The face that stared back at him was too young, too unscathed, too _alive_.

Ulrich stumbled back, and the image in the mirror stumbled back as well.

“No, no, no, no, no…” Ulrich muttered as his back hit a wall, his legs slowly giving out from under him. His head dropped into his hands, shaking back and forth. He felt dizzy, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air for him to breathe. He sucked in another breath, and another. “It can’t… I can’t… We did it, we finished it… It’s supposed to be done with…”

“Stern? There you are! Aren’t you supposed to be in class?!” Jim’s voice rang loudly, reverberating against the echoic walls of the bathroom. Ulrich flinched. After years of the quiet University teachers, being thrust back into Jim’s booming mannerisms was jarring.

Ulrich refused to look up, trying to focus on breathing, on seeing without fuzzy blackness clouding his vision. Jim’s footsteps stomped closer.

“Hey, Stern! Answer me!” Ulrich tried to block the sound—his voice was booming; it was too loud, too loud, too loud. Jim’s footsteps stopped before him, and the hairs on his neck rose as the gym teacher’s presence closed in. Ulrich physically restrained himself from lashing out as a heavy hand came down on his shoulder. “Hey! Stern? Are you feeling alright? Stern? Answer me!” The tone in Jim’s voice went from annoyed to worried, and his voice rose in slight hysteria.

“Jim, _please_ , just shut up.” The shaking stopped, and Ulrich was able to calm down, just a little.

“Are you okay, Stern? You need to go to the infirmary?” Ulrich shook his head, but Jim didn’t seem to buy it. “C’mon, I’m taking you to the infirmary. Can you walk?”

Ulrich didn’t answer, but Jim dragged him up anyways, supporting him as they made their way shakily out the bathroom. In between Ulrich’s attempts to remember how to breathe normally, he noted that he was in his old clothes—the cargo pants and the green shirt. He absentmindedly thought that he had fallen asleep without changing.

 Ulrich blacked out somewhere between the stairs and the third corridor they passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a little short, but that’s mostly just because this is the prologue.


End file.
